As I write my first blog post since I
was 15, I had to think about what I was going to write. Ideas, or the
lack of them, swirled in my head. Should I write about BF3? My latest
game MGS: HD Collection? My private life regarding University, new
pets or how I'm going to soon turn 22 and want to become 11? All good
ideas for future blogs perhaps, but slowly there was one idea that
kicked and screamed to the forefront. It can't be ignored. It's my
bloody shit laptop.
I used to be among the Master Race.
Windows XP, BF2 and the occasional typed up Microsoft Word school
report was my world. I upgraded certain aspects when they became
slower and apart from a lack of sunlight, there was no real draw
backs. But times changed. University loomed, a social life beckoned
and the desktop in the corner which I built for myself became
something that was to inflexible, to impracticable for my new life. I
bought a laptop.
Now, I'm going to skip over my first
laptop. I'm going to focus on my second laptop. The laptop I am
currently typing on; HP Pavilion DV7. Bought for around £500 at the
time, this piece of kit was supposed to be the best of both worlds
for me. I could game on it, an option no longer available to me since
I broke my desktop while drunk (whoops), and it was portable with a
lovely battery life.
Oh how things turned sour.
First thing to go wrong is something
that is always a danger with laptops; overheating. I tried to play, I
believe, The Sims 2 on the laptop. Hold the laughter, it's a good
game. Anyhow, the laptop shut down on me. Critical error. Whah? This
laptop should be able to handle a game released in 2004 surely? It
had not gone unaware that the laptop was running extremely hot. So, I
got into contact with HP. They reassured me it was a well known
problem and they could fix it. 2 weeks later, I was back on The Sims
2 and it was still spewing out more heat then my oven.
Fine, I thought, I'll just have to give
up on the games. £500 for some technology that has a dedicated
graphics card and I can't play 2004 releases. I'll take the bullet
and limber on. I'm a University student! Forces me to study.
Only, the evil bastard of a thing
decides to spring another surprise on me. It's not just games that
causes my £500 laptop to die. Microsoft Word, take a bow, you too
can boil my laptop! Currently typing this my hands are almost to the
point of sweating (lovely, I know). Quick download of a hardware
monitor tells me my processor is currently 76c. Fabulous.
Now, I know not every laptop radiates
heat almost as hot as a slow cooker when using a word processing
package. The next fault that occurs is the battery. 9 months into
ownership, a big X appears on my the battery icon. Big Xs are never
good. The charger that could last 2 and a half hours off charge soon
lasted 30 minutes. What next to go wrong? The charger. The connection
inside my laptop where the charger goes in becomes wonky. Now, unless
my laptop is perfectly still the laptop will go off charge and turns
off.
Is there a point to this sad story?
Beyond me venting, yes. This is a warning.
Laptops are walking disasters. My
girlfriends laptop has died, my laptop before it, the keys fell off.
My dads laptop? The screen died. My brothers laptop went the same way
as mine. Even Alienware laptops, of which a Uni friend had,
spontaneously combust from heat and have to be held up by books to
avoid melting into the table its on. They can't be upgraded so as to
make them last and if a key falls off the keyboard, typing becomes a
nightmare.
These days, tablets are coming of age.
I once viewed them as wastes of money – why buy a tablet when you
have a laptop? The reason is tablets don't overheat, are user
friendly and do almost everything a laptop can do for much less then
£500. The Google Nexus 7, my first tablet, has retired my laptop to
Football Manager and Word Processing – something I could do on my
Nexus is I bought an external keyboard. Bare in mind, FM causes 90+
heat.
My laptop is practically dead to me.
Waste of bloody space.
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